relax. Before I realized it, he’d put a warm hand on my bare back and, bending down, kissed me slowly on the mouth.
After a moment he broke off, but his hand was still caressing its way down my back. Goodness, he’s lethal, I thought. Get a grip on yourself, Prudence. He’s the sort of man who’ll stop at nothing.
‘Wow,’ said Jack dreamily. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ and he was about to kiss me again when a familiar voice said, ‘Everything all right?’
I pulled away from Jack as though I’d been stung.
Pendle stood in the doorway. His face was as enigmatic as ever. That’s done it, I thought. I wonder how long he’s been standing there.
Jack laughed. He didn’t seem remotely embarrassed.
‘Oh dear, I’ve lapsed again,’ he said. ‘I’d better ring up Redheads Anonymous.’
Chapter Five
I was woken next morning by rain like machine-gun fire on the roof and Coleridge and Wordsworth lying on my feet. The curtain let in long fingers of light across the ceiling. I looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock.
I had a bath and dressed. No one was about downstairs. I went into the drawing-room. Last night’s jetsam of glasses, cigarette ends and coffee was still lying about.
I pulled back the musty, dark blue, velvet curtains and caught my breath at the desolation of the scene before me. Down below in the valley was a huge, black lake, and all around like dark, sleeping beasts lay the mountains, their peaks shrouded in mist.
The garden was a wilderness of tangled shrubbery. Lichen crawled over the paved terrace — and I’d never seen such rain, sweeping in great curtains across the lake, stripping the last leaves from the trees, flattening the blackened dahlias. There was no colour except where the beech trees still smouldered among the dark pines.
This is Pendle’s country, I thought, country that would put winter into anyone’s soul. Oh God, I did hope he wasn’t upset about Jack kissing me last night.
Remembering Jane’s advice about helping in the house, I gathered up the glasses and cups, found the kitchen and washed them up — not so easy as there was no washing-up liquid.
Where on earth was everyone? I was dying for some coffee. Suddenly I heard a noise and, poking my head out of the kitchen door, saw a tall man with a black and grey flecked crew cut wearing a college scarf and a tweed jacket tiptoeing towards the front door, carrying his shoes. I couldn’t see his face. The next moment he’d opened the door and shot out closing it very quietly behind him. He must be one of Rose’s boyfriends. I went back to the drawing-room and had another look at that terrifying view.
‘Drinking it all in?’ said a voice. It was Maggie, in a dressing-gown. She didn’t look so ravishing this morning, deathly pale with her mascara smudged underneath her eyes.
‘You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?’ she asked. ‘Jack’s gone over to the mill with Pendle and I’ve run out.’ I got a packet out of my bag and handed it to her. She lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.
‘God, I needed this. We rather overdid the boozing last night.’
‘What a fantastic view this is,’ I said.
Maggie shrugged her shoulders. ‘It gives me the creeps, particularly on days like this. I want to go back to London, but Jack’s so keen on the mill, I suppose we’re stuck here for good.’
I asked her if I could make a cup of coffee.
‘Oh, hell, it’s Mrs Braddock’s day off, so everything goes to pot. Tomorrow she’s got to blitz the house from top to toe. Ace is coming home. He’ll be appalled at the state of the place.’
She looked round, grimacing at the sticky rings left by glasses all over the furniture, the peeling paint, the dead flowers.
‘That’s the odd thing about my mother-in-law,’ she went on, ‘as long as she can have stunning clothes and pay her bridge debts, she doesn’t mind if the house falls to bits.’
We went into the kitchen. Antonia Fraser jumped off a chair and started weaving between my legs, mewing for food. I found some bacon and eggs.
‘Shall I make you some?’ I asked.
Maggie shuddered. ‘I never touch breakfast. Anyway, I’m getting disgustingly fat. I’ve put on a stone since I married Jack — boredom, I suppose.’
‘Where’s Pendle’s mother?’ I asked, putting rashers into the frying pan.
‘Rose? She never surfaces before lunchtime.’
‘Pendle said she was formidable,’ I said, ‘so I imagined she’d be all tweeds and corrugated hair.’
Maggie laughed. ‘She’s stunning, isn’t she? Gosh, that bacon smells good. While you’re making it, you might as well cook some for me.’
I made some coffee and dished the bacon and eggs on to two plates and we took them into the drawing- room.
‘How long have you been married?’ I asked.
‘About two years. It seems ages longer.’ She turned her headlight eyes on me. ‘Did you know I was going to marry Pendle before I met Jack?’
Suddenly the room seemed to go dark. ‘No, I didn’t know,’ I said.
‘Yes. It was funny really. I came up for a holiday when I was only eighteen, and met Pendle and we had a most terrific affair, not just bed, but endless gazing into each other’s eyes, and walks in the moonlight, and passionate letters full of quotations. You know how good Pendle is at making things serious. I wanted to get married at once, but again, you know Pendle. He swore he loved me, but he thought we ought to wait six months so we could find somewhere proper to live.
‘And then Jack came home from South Africa. His first marriage was on the rocks by then. He was all brown and his hair was bleached almost white, and he seemed to be always laughing and pulling fivers out of his pocket. I came up to see Pendle for the weekend and fell in love with Jack, and we eloped.
‘Rose thought it hysterical, but everyone else was livid, particularly Ace. For the first month we holed-up in a little hotel in Ambleside, terrified that Pen would turn up with a hatchet. But, typical don’t-lose-your-cool Pendle, he sent us a nice letter and later even a wedding present. I was disappointed. I’ve always wanted to have men fighting over me. Then Ace’s wife was killed in a car crash so the limelight was directed off Jack and me. We all met up at the funeral. Then Ace took this job working for American television and Jack took over the mill.’
I felt sick. I couldn’t finish my breakfast. So this was the girl Pendle had loved, who had broken through that icy reserve. Knowing Pendle, he would never forgive her for jilting him and marrying Jack, but if he had forgiven her he must still love her. Why the hell had he brought
‘Why is their step-brother called Ace?’ I asked, in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
‘He’s really Ivan. “Ace” stems from when they were children. Three boys and a girl, with Jack the youngest. Ace, King — Pendle, Queen — Linn, and Jack, you see. “Ace” stuck as a nickname.’
‘What’s he like?’
Maggie took one of the photographs down from the desk and handed it to me.
It was a face you would never forget — black-haired, beetle-browed, very deep-set eyes, high cheekbones like Pendle’s, a large aquiline nose, something slightly cruel about the mouth — a tough, haughty, uncompromising face, used to getting its own way.
‘I wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark night,’ I said lightly.
‘Oh, I would.’ A dreamy expression came over Maggie’s face. ‘You can’t help fancying Ace. He’s a cross between Mr Rochester and Darcy, but there’s a kind of gipsy passion about him like Heathcliff.’
‘Why is everybody so scared of him?’
Maggie took another of my cigarettes. ‘He holds the purse strings. Old Mr Mulholland realized what a spendthrift Rose was and left all the money to Ace. He’s generous, mind you, but nothing could be enough for Rose. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but he’s still wildly attractive.’
